Sweet Saturday: Bread pudding with cherries

Bread Pudding with Cherries

• 3 eggs
• 600 ml  milk
• 180 gr of brown sugar
• 1 sachet of vanilla sugar
• teaspoon of biscuit spices (mix of cinnamon 40%, coriander seed, caraway, nutmeg, ginger and glove) 
• 400 gr old bread
• pinch of baking soda (1/2 teaspoon)
• 120 gr cherries (from a can)

Mix the eggs, milk and sugar. Add the bread torn into little pieces. Mix with a soon and add the baking soda and cherries, add some of the juice of the cherries too. Leave to rest and soak for at least an hour. 

Butter a baking tin. Pour the mix into the tin and bake for 45-60 minutes in a oven of 150-175°C.

Enjoy your Sweet Saturday!

Story Bowl: Alice in the Fifties

This bowl was made to commission; the input was: Make a bowl for someone who adores Alice in Wonderland and is a great fan of the fifties era too.

So a bowl in fifties green with the white rabbit, tea-party and playing cards it became. The teacups and the lid of the teapot are loose, removable. The watch is the interior taken from an old ladies watch.

***

Sweet Saturday: Elderberry Flower Pancakes

Pick the elderberry flowers, about 1 per 1-2 pancakes. Shake them well.
Make your pancake batter as your are usual.

Now first I tried to add the complete umbels, like this:

Looks nice doesn't it? The idea is to remove it carefully, the batter has to be dry by this point. It was tricky to get it out starting from the outside, working inwards before the other side of the pancake was burned. Also not all flowers stay behind in the pancake. Very fiddle work and not a lot of flavour.

So I picked all the flowers from the umbels and sprinkled those liberally over the pancake while the batter is still wet.













Turn as usual, eat like that or with an extra topping of ice, cream, suger, .... as I write I think lavender ice would be a great companion to these pancakes.

*** Bon apetit! ***

Note: while picking the flowers of the umbels, keep in mind a lot of pollen will escape covering your clothes in yellow dust.

Note: pick umbels which are in full bloom and dry, preferable after a few days of sun as they will be more fragrant and flavoursome :)

Sweet Saturday: Lemon Balm Syrup

Lemon Balm Syrup

I found the recipe here, but since that site is in Dutch I'll translate it here into English.

Pick some lemon balm (two hands full, make a cup with your hands and hold the leaves loosely). 

Rinse the lemon balm and put in a pot or glass bowl.

Boil 1 litre of water, add this to the lemon balm and leave it to infuse overnight. 

Take the leaves from the water and squeeze. Strain the liquid.

At 500 gr of sugar for every litre and heat until the sugar is dissolved. 

When all the sugar is dissolved and vapour comes from the liquid it's time to put it into clean bottles.

NOTE: I used cane sugar and only 400 gr, downside of cane sugar is that you loose the lovely fresh green colour, as you can see when you look at the bit which did not fit in my bottles, but tastes an smells just as yummy all the same :)

Dishwasher proof

Porcelain, especially some of my pieces, looks really delicate; people hardly dare touch it at fairs and markets. I than usually make them hold the object ;)

Porcelain is so much sturdier than your average ceramic, stoneware, pottery, ... To me that is the beauty of it, you can work very fine and still it will keep it's strength. Other clay would crumble when worked to such thin proportions.

And yes, it dishwasher safe too! Like my new line of butter dishes:

You can find them in my etsy shop, custom orders are welcome too. 

Story Bowl: Sailing Sheep

Custom story bowl with the tiniest sheep I made so far :)  It lives on the isle of Wight. 

Request was as follows: A bowl for a couple married 50 years, she loves sheep, he loves sailing and they're going to the isle of Wight, where they went for they honeymoon, to celebrate their 50th anniversary. 

The making off:

Version 1 of the sailing sheep, bit too big compared to the bowl.

Bowl with some blue glass ready to go in the kiln for the glaze firing. 

The 2 boats with the sailing sheep in the back ground.

Smallest boat set in the bowl in between the glass.

The finished bowl:

Packed in and ready to go:

More layers to the scene in the bowl:

He was in the marine and out on sea a lot, hence the lonely sheep. He thought upon receiving the bowl, that the sheep in the boat was a bear, cause his nickname is that of a famous bear. The boat can also be sea as the "huwelijksbootje" literary wedding-boat in Dutch, as in to embark on matrimony. 

I love it when a bowl triggers all sots of stories :)

France

We, hubby and me, were in France in the second week of May, enjoying the good weather and the good life.

We added an extra day at the start to visit Marta whom I met through etsy, she now runs several etsy shops, among which Martice Vintage. The view from her house is stunning, even on a more grey day.

She took us to a vintage/flea market in a village nearby. So thanks to her I found these awesome drinking cups. I love the green glaze on the inside especially.

Our final destination was Cotignac in the Provence, the trip took us through the mountains, often along this stream, the Buech, growing wider as we went further south. It was a great ride.

Cotignac is a stunning village, with a cliff full of history rising up behind it. There was a market on Tuesday and a vintage fair on Wednesday, lots of nice little cafes and restarants so we did not go far.

                         

We shared a villa with friends just outside the village, a little paradise.

Only on the day we left we came across the famous lavander fields. And a sweet black cat near the garage where we had stoppped cause the engine kept overheating because the belt that cools the engine was slipping. The problem solved itself (like at the dentist, problem was gone once we were at the mechanic) and we drove home safely.

Next time you might find us on the motorbike too, it is such a great place for bikers, 

lovely winding roads and such.